Thirst by Mary Oliver

It's #NationalPoetryMonth! I've spoken before about my love of Mary Oliver, and I've made it a bit of a personal mission to read her entire body of work - no small task, because she wrote like she was running out of time. I'm currently working on Devotions, a collection Oliver compiled in reverse chronological order, which I find fascinating. Reading Thirst after Dream Work, I understand why. Thirst was written much later in Oliver's career: it has the same reverence for nature, the same voice that resonates, but Oliver is a more experienced poet by miles in Thirst than she was in Dream Work, and it's reflected in her writing. She speaks more openly about her faith and questions more deeply who she is. Thirst is much darker in tone overall as Oliver grapples with the death of her longtime partner. These elements took me by surprise given my experience with her other work, and while I didn't dislike this collection, it doesn't top Dream Work for me. Here are some of my favorite poems from this collection, if you're interested in seeing her work before committing to a whole collection:
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-Messenger
-Great Moth Comes From His Papery Cage
-Swimming with Otter
-Mozart, For Example
-A Pretty Song
-The Place I Want to Get Back To
-Praying
-The Fist
-The Uses of Sorrow
-In the Storm